Musing on yoga, wellness and living a healthy, happy life

October 15, 2014

In the video below, Sadhguru addressed menstruation, kriyas, yoga poses and a little bit of yoga history regarding women.

The idea that yoga poses were created for men is not a new one. However, Sadhguru suggests that even though this may be true, if practiced properly, most yoga poses, even during menstruation, can still be safe.

It is interesting that he mentions Mayurasana which is a pose I struggled with for years until I allowed myself to take my wrists apart instead of keeping them together. This is the first pose I encountered where it was very obvious that it made no sense for a woman's body. When done in the traditional way, it crushes your breasts and it hurts. In the picture below, notice that her wrists are spread apart instead of being together which is how it is traditionally taught. Sadhguru even suggests leaving it out all together. Can you think of any more poses that feel unreasonable for a woman's body?

Mayurasana. By Yogic Photos. Posted with Permission to http://www.ashtangapictureproject.com

Watch the video below. Do you believe that women and men should practice differently?

October 02, 2014

Well +Good recently published an article about a yoga studio in New York fighting to keep their yoga teachers as independent contractors instead of employees. Yoga Vidya, a yoga studio in New York, is fighting the results of an audit from 2006-2008 taxes which stated that they owed back taxes on teachers that should have been filed as employees. Yoga Vidya is appealing because they do not want the state to set a precedent that may result in new regulations that would force all studios to file teachers as employees. If studios are forced to file teachers as employees, they will be forced to pay employment taxes and provide unemployment insurance. Many people feel that this will break yoga studios and many will be forced to close.

“It is extremely serious for New York state yoga studios. If this case is not heard and won on appeal, it’s going to set an incredibly bad precedent,” says Yoga for NY founder and owner of Yoga Union Alison West. “It really will put a lot of studios out of business.”

The case she’s referencing is popular downtown studio Yoga Vida’s, and it concerns whether the state should require all yoga teachers be paid as employees rather than independent contractors (or freelancers), the latter of which is the way most studios—especially small ones—currently classify them. If studios were forced to do this, owners say the costs of providing unemployment insurance and worker’s compensation for every teacher on the schedule would be prohibitive.

After a lengthy process that began in 2010, Yoga Vida owner Mike Patton has arrived at the highest appeal level and is waiting to find out whether the appeal board will grant the case a hearing or will simply issue a written decision. And the state has indicated, in some instances, that the final outcome of this case will be used as precedent in others, making its significance greater.

When auditors look at whether a worker should be paid as an employee or independent contractor, they try to determine whether the employer exercises “control” over the worker (or if the employee has complete “control” over their own business). In many cases, yoga studios do exert control—if they require teachers to teach a specific method, for example, or only allow them to teach at their one studio or require them to attend meetings—and in these cases, they should be paid as employees.

But West says the state uses measures that don’t make sense in the yoga world to determine whether teachers “control” their own business. For example, she says, they ask teachers if they bring their own “tools” to teach, and since teachers say no, that the studio provides mats and blocks, the state uses that as evidence that they are not independent. (Maybe teachers could start having Uber SUVs full of Manduka mats follow them around?)

And in Patton’s case, the state used the fact that he said “he would personally address instructors regarding their manner of instruction if it posed a risk of injury to the students” as evidence he was in control of teachers. Monitoring the safety of his clients was considered “controlling” teachers.

Plus, Patton explains, a blanket ruling would force him to pay a traveling teacher who teaches one handstand workshop a year at Yoga Vida as an employee. If a teacher teaches two classes a week at five different studios (a common scenario in New York) and picks up and goes to India whenever he or she wants, they’d still have to be on the payroll at all five studios. “They are literally going to run studios into the ground, so the so-called protection of employees is going to result in the lack of employment for yoga teachers,” West says.

“Other industries aren’t required to do this, so how could they do this to our industry?” Flynn says. (Photo: Laughing Lotus)

The cost?

Patton estimates that paying every teacher as an employee would force him to raise class prices 10 to 15 percent, which could definitely affect business. And an even bigger issue is looming: If during studio audits the state decides studios have been paying their teachers incorrectly, it often slaps them with a bill for unpaid unemployment insurance spanning a huge chunk of time.

Laughing Lotus owner Dana Flynn is still fighting the results of an audit from 2006–2008, which determined that many of her teachers she considered independent should have been classified as employees. She was hit with a bill upwards of $25,000, a sum that she says her business didn’t exactly have ready in the bank. “Right now it’s a problem, and we’ve got to find a solution,” she says.

My Thoughts

We opened Pandora's Box: When we took the spirituality out of yoga and focused more on profit and fitness, we opened up the Pandora's box that would allow this and the DC Yoga tax, which recently passed, to happen. The IRS, and everyone else who seeks to regulate yoga, are seeing dollar signs. When they see that yoga is a multi-billion dollar industry, they want a piece of it. Those of us who teach or own yoga studios know that a huge chunk of this money is going to yoga apparel companies,however, those companies are already taxed to the possible highest level under the law. However, there is still more money to be had from yoga studios through taxation.

This Model Would Spell Big Changes For How Yoga Studios Do Business- the extra cost could break the smaller yoga studios causing them to close. Big studios could survive but prices would need to increase. They would most likely have to either A. keep employee hours low and have more teachers or B. Cut back on teachers and have a few teaching everything.

This could also cut down on the number of new yoga studios entering the market which may raise demand for yoga and make up for the difference in cash flow going out to the IRS.

Fewer Choices For Yoga Students

Main Stream Studios Would Be King- the small yoga studio that teaches more esoteric less popular styles of yoga may close and leave only big box yoga studios that stay with more main stream work out based practices.

It may also take yoga back to its roots- We may see the resurgence of small classes taught in people's homes or church basements by a few extremely dedicated individuals.

Yoga teachers would get more benefits but it may be harder to find a job

What do you think about this issue? Should yoga studios pay employment tax?

September 29, 2014

The internet is buzzing with the Rachele Brooke Smith video where she does yoga on the ledge of a building in Times Square. Some people thought she was fearless, cool and bold while others thought her behavior was totally unyogic. People are also upset over the yoga teacher reality show that Sadie Nardini and YAMA are cooking up. All I could think was, I am fresh out of haterade.

Everyone's opinions on it are valid, and indeed, I side with one of these camps but it does not matter. I wouldn't do it, but I don't blame her. We have created a yoga culture where if you are young, beautiful, half naked, and can do handstand, you can become famous and your classes are packed.

Instead of riding around town all day in a beat up Kia teaching 20 classes a week so you can make enough to pay rent on a hood adjacent studio apartment that you share with 3 people, you can pretty yourself up, go viral on the internet and make $100.000 a year.

As Gandhi says, we have to be the change we want to see in the world. We have to get out and support the people that we feel represent the type of yoga we want to see. Whether that is Sadie Nardini, Sharath Jois or your local yoga teacher, you speak with your feet. Take it to the street.

Still panting, I said to Keila, “That was awful. I wonder why it was so hard this time?”

A wise and observant young woman, Keila softly replied,“It’s because when you start to suffer, you speed up. And then you get mad.”

I looked at her for a moment and then, despite my still thudding heart, I laughed.

She was right.

An experienced cyclist, Keila acted as my coach when I first started riding. One of the things she always had a hard time getting me to understand was how to pace myself, especially going uphill.

I had actually become fairly good at it, but today I had forgotten the lesson. Today, when I came to a very steep section of the challenging hill, I tried to speed up to make the pain stop.

But then I didn’t have enough energy for the rest of the climb and really struggled.

Out of fuel and suffering, I got angry and swore at the pain and myself.

The same is true for yoga. I discovered that if I let my breathing speed up, my stamina diminished. Even if I make it through class, I feel horrible at the end. However, if I slow my breath and move slower, I make it through class and more importantly, I actually feel good at the end.

Another important reason to slow down or keep the pace consistent, is that when it gets hard, our mind starts to tell us stories. When we start to listen to the mind, we don't listen to the body. This sets you up for injuries. Also moving fast, even if the mind is quiet, gives you little time to react to the bodies signals. Meaning by the time you realize that you shouldn't have made that move, you are already in it and hurt. If you are moving slowly into and out of poses, if something is wrong, you will get a signal before you go all the way in and you can adjust.

The article goes on to talk about other areas of life where this phenomenon surfaces. For if you are seeing it on your yoga mat, chances are that you are doing it in your life as well.

I began to wonder if this manifested itself in my life off the bike, too.

It didn’t take long to see the pattern.

Averse to being in conflict with anyone, I often sped up during disagreements, either acquiescing to the other person or abruptly cutting them out of my life.

Times of confusion or indecision also caused me to speed up such that I would make impulsive choices just so I wouldn’t have to suffer any longer with being unsettled.

At the beginning of a long period of deep and heavy grief, I quickly latched onto someone I thought would help me get past the pain only to have that person bring me more heartache and sadness.

And, during some of these times of indecision, confusion, conflict, or sadness, I used anger as a motivator to propel me into action, but again, usually in a rash, compulsive manner.

Inevitably, these “speed up maneuvers” backfired on me. I ended up regretting choices I made, cut off people I would have enjoyed keeping in my life, and lost myself in the process of getting the pain to stop.

But I also noticed that as I’ve aged and become more conscious of my speed up maneuvers, I’ve learned to pace myself more. To move more slowly and with greater awareness of my actions and their outcomes.

And I’ve learned that pacing myself doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

When I’m on my bike and climbing a hill, I still get to a point that I’m suffering no matter what I do.

But when I pace myself rather than try to outrace the pain, I have confidence that I can both tolerate the suffering and make it to the top of the hill.

So now, when I pace myself during life’s struggles, I don’t hold on to illusions that it’s not going to hurt in some way.

I have confidence in the knowledge that slowing down and moving forward with awareness will allow me to manage the suffering so that I can make it to the top of whatever emotional hill lies in front of me.

I encourage you to identify your speed up maneuvers.

What do you do when you’re suffering?

What are the ways you try to get the pain to stop that only drain your energy and cause you to struggle even more?

How can you pace yourself so that, even though moving forward may still hurt, you can make it to the top of the hill?

On our next ride, I told Keila about my insights that sprang from her quiet observation of my cycling struggles.

She laughed gently and said, “Everything that happens on the bike relates to what happens off the bike, Bobbi.”

September 09, 2014

I get it. It is supposed to be tongue and cheek humor. Funny. I haven't had my coffee this morning and my mind is a little cloudy but it felt like a shuck and jive black face minstrel show to me.

It doesn't really talk about the so called "issue", not that I think there really is one, but I digress, of the lack of black people in class. It alludes to it, but it doesn't really talk about it.

The stereotypes are ridiculous. The crappy stereotypical McDonald's commercial black people smiling and dancing and rapping. It reminds me of the dance scene from 12 Years A Slave. I know. I know. I am taking this too far but you know the scene. If you don't, look it up. I dare you....

The rap oh my goodness...hip hop just had a heart attack

All the people actually doing real yoga poses were White. If a person wanted to show that Black people can and do indeed do yoga, why wouldn't you show Black people doing yoga? Why are all the Black people just dancing and bopping around the room rolling their eyes? There are a few shots that insinuate they do yoga, but all the real yoga shots were done by the White models.

This has already been picked up my White bloggers who feel that it positively reflects Black people. I am sorry. I don't act like this. I like hip hop but I also like Radio Head, Tori Amos and Krishna Das. My yoga practice rocks. I do the poses with the White girls and we all love each other. No one is staring and rolling their eyes. We are all on our mat doing our thing. Afterwards we hang out, grab coffee, food and party like its 1999.

My point is that Black people are diverse. I don't need to be treated special. Just show me the same kindness you do everybody else. You don't have to play rap music for me or go out of your way to make me feel special in your yoga class . I came to do yoga. Teach me yoga they way you do everybody else.

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a joke but there are only a few videos out there with people of color doing yoga. It pains me that this is the one that will get talked about and blogged about.

If I am being too serious call me out but I would love to hear what you guys think. I will make sure to drink my coffee and do a few sun salutes before I answer back.

Oh, and just in case you needed to see what I real live Black person looks like doing yoga, here are some pictures of me doing it.

September 04, 2014

Like I said before, the Yoga Journal is not about yoga. BKS Iyengar, one of the most prolific yogis of all time dies, and there is not one mention of it on the cover. I am sure they have a little snippet in the book. But if this is a magazine that educates people about yoga, it should be up front and center. The whole magazine should be about him and his contributions to yoga. But it isn't. It is a yoga flavored fashion/fitness magazine. It is in the same category as Shape and Fitness Magazine.

I understand that people are all excited because Kathrine Budig is on the cover with very little photo shopping but this is just smoke and mirrors. They are trying to keep their current base and draw in some of the people who were threatening to leave. However, Kathryn, who is probably crazy awesome and amazing, is still a yoga celebrity and all the content is still the same.

I believe that yoga is at a crossroads. The energy of change is here. We can continue on this road of materialism and body focus and continue to reduce yoga down to a set of alignment rules or a fitness exercise akin to Tae Bo or Cross Fit or we can reintegrate its spiritual aspects and positively change not just the body but the world.

We the students and teachers of yoga have to make that choice. It is not up to Yoga Journal. It is up to us.

September 03, 2014

This amazing article on Yin Yoga.com talks about how, in certain situations, stress is needed to strengthen even the most fragile bodies. While I love this article, what a lot of modern yogis fail to talk about is energetics. I understand that energies can't be measured and often go under the category of quakery and yogic delusions, however, the movement of stagnant energy has always been apart of yoga. The yogis understood the nadis or the energy channels of the body and how yoga poses effected them. Sometimes the body needs to be stressed to awaken energy in the body and to move out mental traumas that have gotten stored in the tissues and in the mind.

It is commonly accepted, even in the medical community, that people can feel pain long after a trauma has been physically healed. Yoga can be used to get rid of mental samskaras, or ruts in our minds, that result in us being mentally and physically in pain long after the events in our lives have passed. To do that, a person needs to be uncomfortable. They need to come face to face with the uncomfortable sensations and the perceived limitation.

Do No Harm?

Every yoga teacher wants to do good for his or her students: like doctors we strive to "do no harm." But, unfortunately, harm sometimes occurs. Teachers are no different in their intentions than nurses and doctors, but the prescriptions offered by teachers may be just as dangerous for the student as a well-intentioned prescription issued by a physician. Iatrogenics is not mistakes by a doctor, it applies to situations where a doctor followed all the right protocols and procedures, the right medicine was issued, the patient took it in the right doses and times, but the patient died because of all these "right" processes, not in spite of these instructions.

This can and does happen in a yoga class as well. The teacher may follow all the instructions she learned in her teacher training course, she may have followed the latest discussions about whether to bend the knees or not while in a forward bend, whether to stress the spine or not if the student has osteoporosis, to find the right alignment for the neck in headstand, and the student may follow the instructions perfectly, and still an injury may result, not in spite of the right instructions being given and followed, but because they were given and followed.

Let's examine just one illustrative example: a student comes to a yoga class for the first time, approaches the teacher and explains that she has osteoporosis in her lumbar spine. The teacher, well-trained and knowledgeable about osteoporosis, acknowledges the students conditions and offers directions and alternatives for her: she prohibits the student from any flexion at all in the spine, restricts twisting to the upper back only and then, only mildly, and also limits the amount of extension in backbends. The teacher rightfully believes that the student is close to the point labeled (B) in figure 3, but she prescribes for her student stress levels only at point (A), which is none at all. The teacher helps the student to minimize all stress to the lower back and checks constantly on the student to make sure that she is comfortable in every pose. Props are the student's constant companions every time she comes to that class.

What is comfortable makes us fragile![7] The noble intention to do no harm to the student by making her comfortable, by minimizing or eliminating stress to the damaged areas causes those areas to become more and more fragile. Her lumbar joints atrophy further because of the reluctance of the teacher (and thus the student) to place any stress there. The student's back becomes as fragile as a porcelain frog. The teacher's intentions are commendable: her teaching harmful.

Risks & Rewards

William Broad's articles and book, The Science of Yoga, caused controversy and debate in the yoga community when he listed many of the ways, through anecdotes, that yoga was causing harm to students. He was accused of shoddy reporting, selective sampling, and sensationalism. His stated aim was to make students aware of the "risks and rewards" of yoga.[8] Broad was warning about the dangers of going too far, of employing too much stress, of going beyond point (B) of figure 3, and of iatrogenics - the harm caused by yoga even when it was properly taught. Again, this was not to imply that all yoga is harmful: it isn't - yoga can be lifesaving and is very healthy and healing for most people, but not for everyone all the time. A reaction set in when the book was released which saw many yoga teachers go to the other extreme: if too much stress or challenge was bad, then it is better to have none at all. They went to point (A) on our curve. Dogmatic assertions switched from "always do this pose this way," to "never do that pose that way." But dogma is still dogma: Paul Grilley is fond of saying, "Never is never correct and always is always wrong."[9] As doctors have long known, we cannot have one prescription that will work for every patient. That is an important understanding, but it is one that is very hard to put into practice.

There are yoga teachers who insist that students must never do Pigeon Pose, or Headstand, or --- pick an asana. There are teachers who claim that every time any student does a forward fold, whether standing or sitting, their knees mustbe bent. There are teachers, who, following their training, or their own experience, or even guided by valid logic, insist that students must always or never do such-and-such. Unfortunately, the reality is - by trying to do no harm, we may be preventing our students from getting the stress that they need to be healthy: we are making them fragile. Certainly, there are some students who really should not be stressing the challenged area. The problem is - how to know which student is which? Like the doctors who don't know in advance which patient will be cured by chemotherapy and which patient will be killed by it, yoga teachers can't know in advance what really is going to be best for our students.[10]

It may seem quite counterintuitive to suggest that someone who has a fragile or damaged spine should deliberately stress it. The obvious course of action is to give it rest, but this debate has run its course in terms of women's recovery after childbirth. At the turn of the 20th century the prevailing wisdom prescribed lots of bed rest to allow the new mother to recover her strength. In time it was realized that this was the worst thing to do for most mothers: they needed to become mobile as soon as possible. Indeed, a study published in Lancet suggests that bed rest is never a good idea for any conditions.[11] By subjecting ourselves to small amounts of stress, we become antifragile. Figure 4 shows this graphically: if we extend Nassim Taleb's logic to people who are injured, we find that they still need some stress or they will risk becoming more and more fragile.

September 01, 2014

When what you say, do, and think is all on one accord, your energy is harmonized and you draw situations and people to you that are vibrating on that same frequency. This applies to every one. "Bad" people. "Good" People. All people.

Even though my thoughts on spirituality have shifted, I was raised Christian. Galations 6:7-9 states,

7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

I was taught that this verse from Galatians meant, if you do bad things, you get bad back. I expected all my so called enemies to fall on bad luck because I was a "good" person and good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. However, I saw that both "good" and "bad" people fell on hard times. That both "good" and "bad people prospered.

Another way to look at, "you reap what you sew" is what you put out you get back. For a person who is sewing from a place of the flesh, if they get back what is of the flesh, then they were successful. Again, the verse speaks to alignment.

I also have realized that "bad" and "good" are often constructs of our mind and a matter of perspective. If a housing development gets torn down to build a mall,who is the bad guy? To the people who open businesses in the mall, the owner of the mall, the contractors who build the mall, the people who receive jobs in the new mall, the city that gets new revenue and the businesses around the mall who enjoy increased traffic, the opening of the mall is very good.

To many of the people who lost their homes and the community that was decimated in the construction, the building of the mall is bad. Many may see it is a sign of the homogenization of their city and fear that crime will go up and that riff raff will now walk the streets of the remaining neighborhoods. Now their picturesque parks and landscapes is a parking deck. The opening of the mall is bad.

Who in this story should prosper? Who prospers is outside of our own thoughts on what is good or bad. It is about alignment. The best thing a "good" person can do in this world, is to focus on your own alignment. Be sure and unwavering about your own path so it unfolds in a way that is conducive to your own development.

August 28, 2014

The only happiness that can stay constant is unconditional happiness. Happiness that is not dependent on any cause, person, place, thing or event. Once the event goes away, the happiness goes. Our happiness must be self generated. Our happiness must be in spite of and outside of what we are seeing with our eyes.

August 26, 2014

Don't get mad at yourself when you find yourself falling back into old mental patterns. It is just a sign that you are in need of some fine tuning. Fine tuning is apart of the growth process. It is easy to clean up our surface patterns but sometimes things go so deep that they don't come up until later. Embrace the process.